And now for something slightly terrifying...

Google has finally started offering their new satellite photo mapping service as part of maps.google.com. Go to http://maps.google.com/maps and click on Satellite, then put in your street address and zoom in.

For example, my old address (I have since moved elsewhere in Miami Beach):

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=5445+Collins+Avenue,Miami+Beach,+FL+33141&spn=0.015407,0.024698&t=k&hl=en

It is kind of scary to be able to zoom in to that level of detail - if it is this detailed now, it will only get more detailed in the future. An interesting tool, but it seems kind of Orwellian too. I suppose just another nail in the coffin of privacy on the Internet.

PS - the important part is, according to this site, Oz Spade does not exist.

sweet! I remember there being a little more detailed, but b/w one on Deviantart a year or so ago too!!

Ack! I can see my truck!

Hehehe you can't zoom into where I am, it gets all blurry around the City View level...

Mauahahahahaha

That shit is wicked. You can also entered a phone number in google and it will give you the name and address of the caller provided the number is listed.



The people at Google-Watch along with over 500 others nominated Google for a Big Brother award in 2003. The nine points Google-Watch raised in connection with this nomination necessarily focused on privacy issues:

1. Google's immortal cookie:
Google was the first search engine to use a cookie that expires in 2038. This was at a time when federal websites were prohibited from using persistent cookies altogether. Now it's years later, and immortal cookies are commonplace among search engines; Google set the standard because no one bothered to challenge them. This cookie places a unique ID number on your hard disk. Anytime you land on a Google page, you get a Google cookie if you don't already have one. If you have one, they read and record your unique ID number.

2. Google records everything they can:
For all searches they record the cookie ID, your Internet IP address, the time and date, your search terms, and your browser configuration. Increasingly, Google is customizing results based on your IP number. This is referred to in the industry as "IP delivery based on geolocation."

3. Google retains all data indefinitely:
Google has no data retention policies. There is evidence that they are able to easily access all the user information they collect and save.

4. Google won't say why they need this data:
Inquiries to Google about their privacy policies are ignored. When the New York Times (2002-11-2 asked Sergey Brin about whether Google ever gets subpoenaed for this information, he had no comment.

5. Google hires spooks:
Matt Cutts, a key Google engineer, used to work for the National Security Agency. Google wants to hire more people with security clearances, so that they can peddle their corporate assets to the spooks in Washington.

6. Google's toolbar is spyware:
With the advanced features enabled, Google's free toolbar for Explorer phones home with every page you surf, and yes, it reads your cookie too. Their privacy policy confesses this, but that's only because Alexa lost a class-action lawsuit when their toolbar did the same thing, and their privacy policy failed to explain this. Worse yet, Google's toolbar updates to new versions quietly, and without asking. This means that if you have the toolbar installed, Google essentially has complete access to your hard disk every time you connect to Google (which is many times a day). Most software vendors, and even Microsoft, ask if you'd like an updated version. But not Google. Any software that updates automatically presents a massive security risk.

7. Google's cache copy is illegal:
Judging from Ninth Circuit precedent on the application of U.S. copyright laws to the Internet, Google's cache copy appears to be illegal. The only way a webmaster can avoid having his site cached on Google is to put a "noarchive" meta in the header of every page on his site. Surfers like the cache, but webmasters don't. Many webmasters have deleted questionable material from their sites, only to discover later that the problem pages live merrily on in Google's cache. The cache copy should be "opt-in" for webmasters, not "opt-out."

8. Google is not your friend:
By now Google enjoys a 75 percent monopoly for all external referrals to most websites. Webmasters cannot avoid seeking Google's approval these days, assuming they want to increase traffic to their site. If they try to take advantage of some of the known weaknesses in Google's semi-secret algorithms, they may find themselves penalized by Google, and their traffic disappears. There are no detailed, published standards issued by Google, and there is no appeal process for penalized sites. Google is completely unaccountable. Most of the time Google doesn't even answer email from webmasters.

9. Google is a privacy time bomb:
With 200 million searches per day, most from outside the U.S., Google amounts to a privacy disaster waiting to happen. Those newly-commissioned data-mining bureaucrats in Washington can only dream about the sort of slick efficiency that Google has already achieved.

Just so you know!

Yeah, but starting on April Fool's day Google instituted a policy of continuous expansion of email boxes... for free. Right now mailboxes are around 2.06 GB and rising.

I have 40 invites. Who wants one?

Hm... sick efficiency and dreams of power?

The corporate history of Deutsche Hollerith-Maschinen-Gesellschaft will get your fires started.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/jun2001/ibm-j27.shtml

Its not so scary. I looked at my neighborhood, and judging by the construction in progress and the condition of the foilage, I'd guess those pictures were from possibly late winter/early spring 2002. Not exactly up to the minute pictures.

Yeah.. that's why I block google's cookie from my hdd and use firefox. the only time I let them check my cookie is on the rare occassion I log into my gmail inbox to keep it from expiring.

Based on a park nearby my house and some changes that were made there, I'd say the pictures of my neighborhood are at least 3 years old, if not older. Ive seen this sort of thing before, but in black & white. It was from a link posted here ages ago. The pics there were also quite old.

I'm seriously freaked out. No more hanky panky on the roof.

Anybody know the address of ant Nudist camps?

Anybody know the address of any nudist camps?

Wow, I didn't know...and as the G.I. Joe team says "Knowing is half the Battle", thanks Darko

That isn't a nudist camp that's Linden Lab There old address is a gay spa or something though.

Hmmm - I'm reading this and have decided only to swim nakies at night now. It's bad enough with all these high rises along the intercostal most of who have telescopes but now you have to worry about frigging satellite photos on the web too.

The degree of data amalgamation that is occurring with not only Google but other companies such as Choice Point and Nexus Lexus makes me very uneasy.

The information is available to almost anyone, nothing is encrypted and you cannot address any issues with inaccuracies of the data even if the inaccuracies cost you your job or denial of credit or service.

Someone needs to sue the shit out of these people when they suffer damages and their personal reputations are ruined.

These bastards even keep track of who your family and neighbors are and sell the information to collection companies. Not long ago I got a letter from a collection company saying that one of my neighbors owed X number of dollars for a credit card bill and wondered if I knew how to contact them.

This neighbor was such a casual acquaintance that I did not actually know their last name until I got the letter. When I took it over to them so they knew what this company was doing they said that they had paid the bill and had been trying for ages to get them to credit it (they even had the cancelled check). Several other neighbors had been sent letters about them as well.

This is just sick and reprehensible. I can tell you this, when they use tactics like this it will be a cold day in hell before I ever volunteer any information whatsoever to any agency (law enforcement or otherwise) about anyone and I will ignore and refuse to use information that comes from data bases such as this.


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My updates looked to be somewhere less than about two or three months accuracy, if you can have sex on your roof for long enough to insure the satellite snaps a pic, Id WANT people to see it, think of the bragging rights.

Seriously though this *is* pretty spooky but as has been pointed out... nothign new. Make sure to wear your tinfoil hats and carry an umbrella (open, andd prefferably covered in tinfoil) at all times.

I'm protected by the neon afterglow of Las Vegas.... zoom in too far and the Luxor light will blind your ass!

that is freaky....

Does being in the UK stop you seeing the picture or something? I just get a bunch of broken links..

How are old archival satellite photos any creepier than a road map?

I used to do this exact thing years ago over on Microsoft's old Terraserver project, until they went all 'PAY US!!!'. It's kinda cool checking out the 7-11 near my ex-gf's place on the other side of the continent.